


Losing My Mind

by 60_Lingette_Humides



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Angst, I listened to a song that was so akeshu i got a stomachache n cried, Its almost all in his head, Its very in akechis head, M/M, My First Fanfic, emetophobia tw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-23
Updated: 2017-09-23
Packaged: 2019-01-01 03:47:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12147960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/60_Lingette_Humides/pseuds/60_Lingette_Humides
Summary: A very impulsively written self-indulgent look at the inside mechanisms of Goro Akechi, and his wild mix of emotions when confronted with coffee cuckler Akira Kurusu.





	Losing My Mind

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the song Losing My Mind by Stephen Sondheim, its (in my musical loving opinion) the perfect akeshu song ???  
> Honestly the FIRST song ive ever attributed to a ship please listen to it
> 
>  
> 
> <https://youtu.be/kQfyqtTLQ2w> <\-- what i listened to for this fic  
> [ https://youtu.be/ty4O4LzK-i8 ](https://youtu.be/ty4O4LzK-i8) <\-- this version is also beautiful

Akechi walks into Leblanc knowing fully that his attempt at normalcy could be ruined by who is manning the counter. It would be either Sojiro with his self-satisfied smirk and acquaintance-appropriate questionings ("Yes, just coffee." "Of course I can handle this much," "Is it really your place to ask about my dietary habits?") all answered with a polite smile and payment for his coffee. Yes, it could be Sojiro and the aiding silence of a cafe without people, only amplifying the gentle anonymity and resounding warmth of Leblanc; or, it could be Akira. A man not worthy of introduction. A thief of the night, with his hair moreso blending in with a murder of crows, with his glasses clouding the view of his eyes. It was enviable that he seemed more guarded without a metaverse mask in place.

If it's Akira- Kurusu, he corrects himself. If it's Kurusu... wiping away at the counter and making him steamed cups of addiction, mere _inches_ away from his gloved hand. Standing behind the counter but no less able to be grasped at the wrist, no less able to be manhandled by the throat and tugged down to _his_ level and... strangled. His skin, able to be felt through the leather. Touchable. His target. _His_ target. His enigma of a target who looks at him, he thinks, as if he sees Goro as more than a detective, a traitor, a nuisance. Which is impossible because he is only those three things. If it's Kurusu, he's not sure what he would do.

It would be so much easier if it were Sojiro waiting in an apron. He knows this, however at the same time he finds himself hoping, as stupid as it is, that there is an impassive face staring back at him. A face that searches for what Goro really wants, seemingly without payment. And he drowns this hope. He pushes it down into a deep pool, submerges this side of him in tar. Still, he feels his hope dry heaving, gasping, escaping from his clutches.

Still, he enters the small back alley cafe, and lifts his head. The chime above him signals his entry, and Goro almost breathes a sigh of relief because there he is. A black mop with glasses attached, the only person who can tell Goro how he really feels without bias, all fear or awe or disgust set aside to be... brazenly courageous. Of course, one would have to be to allow their soon to be murderer into their place of residence. Or utterly foolish.

He smiles in greeting to Kurusu, wondering all the while. _Does he like it? Exposing himself to m_ e. He watches with probing eyes, quickly saying, “The usual, thank you.” _Exposing his home, his bedroom, his best friends, his neck, his hands, his wrists are especially open._ The small line of his spine he can see just as he turns around, right down the hole of his shirt, a peek of skin that deserves more scrutiny than Goro can offer. The expanse of space behind his glasses, which, while visible, could still be better explored.

Goro sits restlessly on his stool, his latest case lying open on the counter. The folder is open, papers already shuffling out of place. It's like he's on autopilot, running through his files as if he's actually looking through them. His eyes slipping higher with each turned page until he's staring at Kurusu’s back, outlining what can't be seen under Jokers overcoat. Then, as quickly as it takes for Kurusu to turn around, he stops himself.

"Say, where is Morgana?" Goro asks, to fill the silence lest Kurusu realize he had been watching.

Kurusu watches him for a moment, as if the truth behind the question was waiting beyond his eyes. "Futaba's for the night. Sojiro left early and he took all the fatty tuna with him."

"Ah." He replies. He says thanks again for his coffee, and starts to read the case in front of him.

He gets through half of the first page before he takes notice of Kurusu clearing his throat (Actually, that's a lie. Kurusu had been trying to get his attention since he started reading the page, but it wouldn't do well to give him what he wants, would it?) Goro looks up with a steady, patient smile. “Yes?”

“What is it like?” he asks, nodding toward the case files.

“Being a detective?” Goro clarifies, talking again once he has a nod from Kurusu. He hums, thinking over what to say despite knowing his practiced lines exactly. “Tedious, mostly. It's more paperwork than initially imagined, but the payoff of catching criminals is always worthwhile. In the same vein, apprehending suspects all the time would be draining. Paperwork, or the quiet that comes with it, is good for relaxing. For instance, if I never had a moment to myself I wouldn't be here now.”

“And how do you determine who's a criminal?” Trust him to zone in on that one specific detail rather than all the fodder surrounding it, Goro quips, silently appreciating the challenge.

Goro chuckles, a lilting laugh that was practiced in his barren apartment and perfected amongst the general public. “There are _laws_ , Kurusu-kun. Most people adhere to them. Those that don't… are criminals,” he finishes, a hint of a shrug worming into his speech and the small tilt of his right shoulder. That should be convincing, he knows, but under Akira's gaze he’s unsure. Instead he feels like an elementary student trying to reassure himself santa is real, or his mother is going to “wake up”...Helpless. The word is helpless.

“So why-” _are you apprehending anyone when you're a criminal yourself?_ "-haven't you arrested me yet?”

Oh. Goro’s head swims in it's own oil spill. This _wasn't_ going where he thought it was; Kurusu _didn't_ suspect him (he thinks); and now he has the upper hand again (knowing, deep in the recesses of his mind, that Kurusu gave it to him). He allows himself a playful smile. “Is that your confession?” he laughs again, “Well… as much as I am loathe to admit it, your ‘group’ has more expertise in the metaverse, and I would be abysmal searching for the black mask by myself.”

Kurusu smiles with him, “Is that the only reason?”

Goro is struck by the grin as if he were shot, feeling the blood pool down into two opposing paths. He forces his face to go slack, normal, unassuming even as very-real sweat drips along the back of his neck.

  1. “Of course. The phantom thieves are still accountable for breaking the law.”
  2. “I admit, your 'criminal activity' has been low on the radar. I suppose I've grown lax after meeting you.”



They're all lies, just like every answer before was a lie. So why did he feel compelled to choke out the truth. The real answer lay dormant in his gut, encroaching itself further up his chest, croaking out before he could realize what happened. “Maybe I just enjoy our talks.”

 Kurusu responds, not missing a heartbeat. "I enjoy them too."

 _Liar!_ Goro gently picks up his cup, attempting not to draw attention as he chugs the hot liquid down his throat to rid himself of his dry tongue. His eyes are lidded to hide how heavily he wants to glare, instead perusing through his papers as if searching. Minutes go by, and he still can't latch onto any other thought but Akira's confession. His hand twitches midway through the collection. The urge to strangle him was back. To coerce that smirk back into place and make him regret his naive (false) words.

He had quirked the ends of his mouth up instead, indicating in the barest way that he heard the barista and wishing intensely it was his hands, ungloved, that he could use to give their  _leader_ a message. His fingers that would worm their way roughly to his neck, grasping his hair painfully. His other hand that would grapple the side of his face, force him to look into his eyes and then, because there would be no other chance; lay passive against his cheek. He would curl fingers through his rat nest of a hairdo, and try his best to memorize each strand as it passed.

 _He's either an idiot or lying. And it's been well established how smart he is._  That almost made it hurt more. One hand toys with the handle of his mug regardless of what he wants. His voice lends credence to his thoughts despite his better judgement, but perfectly in tune with his actual wants. "Now, can I ask you something?"

Akira looks up from wiping the spotless counter, an action started perhaps only to give Goro reprieve. "Of course," says Akira, his voice low as always. His stare as impassive as always. His mask as unbreakable and enviable as.. _._

 _"..._ Aren't you just being kind?"

That was a tad too honest. There's a pause as Goro grimaces, twisting his gaze to stare awkwardly at his almost empty coffee. He weighs between wanting to continue and keeping  up the charade _._  He berates himself for knowing what he's going to pick.Akira waits just as long as it takes Goro's internal battle to end.

"What do y-"

 "It's fine if you are," he continues, his face attempting to be as falsely sublime as a dolls smile. "I know the current arrangement isn't what your group wanted, and they seem to display an understandable hesitation or animosity towards me... You're just being amicable so I don't rat out your team, hm? As the leader, that is quite honourable."

 "Akechi-" 

"However, you don't have to lie to me. If anything, it's insulting." 

 "Akechi-"

"It's not as if I haven't been an unwanted group member before, I'm capable of seeing past-"

"Goro!"

 He struggles to find his breath, still eyeing the mug in front of him. He always says the _wrong thing_ in front of Akira. Perhaps, if someone were listening in, Goro could say this was all part of a master scheme to gain even _more_ sympathy. Surely, that's what he would be telling himself.

 "Ak-Kurusu-kun... I did it again, hm? I apologize for always rambling like that around you. Please ignore me." 

"I won't." Goro finally lifts his head to see Akira infinitely closer than he was before. He doesn't dare move back. The throat in front of him is exposed, but so is the clear grey of his eyes. He's never been so close. "I can't ignore you. You occupy more of my mind than you know."

"...The feeling is mutual." He replies, squashing hopeful feelings into pulverized mulch. His eyes stare minutely into Akira's, each waiting for something. Goro can't afford to wait.

He throws his eyes back onto his work, the papers taunting him with letters that should make sense, but in his current state are nothing more than aggravating squiggles in a language that may be eldritch horror. He hears, in the back of his mind, an endless incessant chirping. Over and over, the quiet baritone voice calling his name. He looks up again, only to find Akira isn't there. 

He turns sharply to his right, just as black moves in the corner of his vision. He watches Akira jumps onto the counter, sitting on top of the more far reaching papers. He watches Akira pick them out from under him. He lifts his gaze in one more gut-wrenching act of eye contact, "I'm not being kind. I enjoy your company."

That makes it even worse. Goro slides his chin to rest against his hands in an imitation of a playful gesture. He can barely hear his own voice over his heartbeat pulsing erratically in his ears. He can hear the rain as if it's amplified, the light downpour that had started sometime after he had come in. Even louder is the rustle of his own coat as he shifts minutely. What was above it all was the deafening sound of Akira's stare, blank eyes unknowingly pushing the detective further. His words are a whisper, barely heard above the rain, "I see... Thank you for your honesty."

His actions are robotic, his response automaton. He returns to studying his files. He wouldn't know what he just said had it not been his own voice, pounding in his ears. Inside him is a much louder voice, screaming around the burning refuge as if his world isn't on fire. The voice is so loud it drowns out his heart, his hope and anguish with one cold, irrefutable fact: 

"You say that only because you don't know the real me," it swears. "You say that because you see a pleasant boy staring at you with eyes that garner pity; because you've never seen the barrel end of my gun."

The voice gains momentum, different and aggressive tones adding into the fray. He hears his own mothers voice screaming out the next line with the rest of them.

"You would _hate_ me!" 

In fact, perhaps it would be pertinent to burst this belief while he can. Yes, he realizes this foolhardy belief would be useful in the long run of his scheme. Yes, there is really no reason not to let him go on believing in Goro's false self. Yet that nagging feeling persisted. It tugged away at his senses until all that was left was the raw unfiltered need to be truthful to the one person he was expected to trick.

The next person to die by his hands. He couldn't just let him stay blind until the end, could he? Surely that was too cruel. This... would be his small mercy. If he could do nothing else, he would let Akira die less of a fool ( _or was this his only excuse left to flirt_?) He lifts his eyes from paperwork to startle Akira with his gaze.

Akira, who had been watching him in the overwhelming lull of conversation. Sudden sweet pain blossoms in his stomach at the thought. A steady row of needles down his spine. 

"You truly like me?" He asks, unsure of his own meaning. His fingers bend the corner of one of his papers. He holds onto the vague understanding of where he wants the conversation to go. 

He nods, "Really." 

"What do you believe you admire about me?" His smile turns to an apologetic simper. "The boy on the tv... the boy in your cafe?"

"All of you. You're an interesting person."

"...Am I supposed to infer then, that you're going to like me despite what I say, because I'm interesting?"

 Akira takes a minute, carefully choosing his words. "I'll like you despite what you say, because I know what you want to say."

 His eyes widen by the slightest margin, their thousand yard stare burning through Joker and straight past him. He laughs. It's not as soft or as pre-practiced. It's reminiscient of a clap of thunder. Loud, barking laughter. "I'm not so sure. Rather, I'm still baffled you think you know me."

Goro shifts out of his chair, his body leaning against the counter, closer to where Akira sits. His left hand teasingly slides closer to the joker's thigh.

Akira reaches across the short distance to establish contact. Goro would be lying if he said he didn't grow immediately terrified. His hand flinched, already tense. At the very last second Akira changes his route, setting his own a short distance away. Not touching, and just barely keeping it company.

He hates himself. This one isn't a revelation. Nothing new. He just likes to re-affirm it in the worst possible ways. He sees the way Akira watches his mouth as it devolves into a playful, teasing grin. His own eyes roam his face much more obviously than before, until settling on his eyes. His mouth is a whisper away from Akiras. His voice is quiet.

"You make me want to puke." His face contorts as he speaks, his hand trembles as he makes it into a fist. "You make me utterly sick with your saccharine attempts to- to understand me. Your attempts to-"

“To like you? To give you what we both want?”

“...Yes!" A confession. Not the right one. Goro feels his face flush, rage and admiration in equal parts. "None of this is what you would want if you knew!"

Joker leans closer, head dangerously close. Foreheads almost touching. He smiles. "What if I already know?"

Goro feels his eyes widen in response. His nostrils flare as alarms go off, people jump off bridges, his heartbeat gives out in a flatline. His voice struggles past all the white noise. "Then I should be  _dead."_

 "Or you could be free." Akira's eyes are pleading. Goro realizes too late that  _this_ was the emotion hidden in his eyes whenever he saw him. This unnatural longing.

Goro stalls. Was this some meticulous trap? A machiavellian play on his only weakness? His fist slowly unclenches to lay flat on the table. He struggles to neutralize his expression. He leans, slightly, just barely enough to let his forehead and Akiras click together. His hair mixes with the others. He breathes a shuddering breath.

Of course he wouldn't go through with it. Whatever this was. This plea bargain before his real trial even began. There was no chance he would ruin years of planning for this. For  _him. (_ Someone who Goro would like to hold beneath him, clench tighter than handcuffs, and keep all for himself.) Still, he finds he can't look the other boy in the eyes as he replies. " _What_ are you suggesting?"

 _Did it matter what became of this when it was only temporary?_ Did it matter that in the dead quiet of Leblanc, Goro hid his trembling gaze under his eyelashes as Akira laid soft lips against his cheek? Who would know? The rain? The busy trains? His bike, just outside, spying through the window with just one handlebar peeking through?

He could have this one thing, right? Goro Akechi could allow himself this small happiness, he thinks to himself, watching as Akira's hand slipped slowly, eagerly, to nip at the gloved hand. His fingers slowly slip the leather off. His skin is revealed, his wrist marred red from his past.Akira lays his hand atop Goro's own trembling appendage. Goro shudders a sigh, their fingers linking together.

It feels as if it's too much. The weight of someone else, the warmth of contact; it's burning; nauseating; a bolder is smashing against his fingers and crushing them into molten rock. His cheek, the small trail Akira makes with his mouth- The world lurches.

It's- a kind gesture, but ultimately more painful than anything. Goro's fingers start to claw into the counter below. His legs give out. He can barely apologize before he's bent over in a heap on the floor, his other hand now gripping a seat as his held hand burns. Puke and lava find its way up his throat. They edge along the confines of his heart, scalding away whatever hope he had left. He whips his hand away from Akira's as if he were a hot stove, and he realizes that is exactly what he is. Something deceptively safe, and is only waiting to burn you.

He dry heaves until finally nothing is willing to come out. He stares at the ground, finally willing to assess the damages. The floor is covered in dark liquid. Was that all that was inside him? His entire body was viscous oils and crude sediment, or perhaps he was made of the same substance as the shadows he controlled, or _-_ Coffee.

He laughs. "It's... just coffee. I guess to puke something of substance would require..."

His voice croaks at the end of the sentence. He begins to cough, watching through watery eyes as Akira comes into frame with paper towels, a rag, and his usual determination. His eyes stare idly through the haze as Akira bends down in front of him. He wipes up the mess without comment or question.

He hates him more for it. He hates him because he knows he doesn't hate him at all. With a newly gloved hand, Goro slides his fingers through Akira's hair, as he stays kneeling in front of him. He feels the weight of Akira's stare and in response Goro looks down.

He squints at the dark solution. Hints of red swirl in oddly concentrated measures within the dark brown. How pleasant. He addresses Akira, "I apologize. I... didn't think I could literally puke at-" he winces, further shoving the hand against Akiras scalp. "I feel much more in control now. If you would like to- to attempt it again."

Akira leans into the touch, his smile noticed out of the corner of his eye, "Sure. I just need a minute." 

A hand wipes through the spilt fluids. It swirls the colours further. The whole mess is quickly discarded along with a few ruined paper towels. The garbage is a bit heavier than before but otherwise, there is no other clue  anything ever conspired but the memory.

 _And only one of them would live to have that memory._ Goro reminds himself, in the quiet that usually accompanies being alone. Akira  ( _Kurusu. He should get back into the habit of calling him Kurusu._ ) re-enters with a wash cloth he uses to wipe his hands. Goro's own feel sweaty.

By the time they're both back to sitting on stools, Goro mutters, "I should have known _."_ There's never anywhere totally safe. This was just another failure on his part to realize that.

 _"G_ oro. The crimes you were made to do... None of us hold it against you."

Goro has to suppress a smile. If only he were talking about that. His hand reaches for Akira's ( _his name will go back to Kurusu when he's dead_ , Goro decides). "Somehow I doubt that." he replies, noncommittal.

**Author's Note:**

> HMMMMMM OKAY WOW  
> I ACTUALLY WROTE THIS  
> Criticisms fine, dandy, appreciated  
> I know i switch between povs, i use the italics function a bit liberally, my prose is more pretentious than it is thought provoking... but i feel adequately happy with this result. If you dislike it or wish to point out anything glaringly terrible im ready for it !!!


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